the howiehttp://www.thehowie.net/blog
Event management specialist.Thu, 07 May 2015 13:06:49 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.10tea for freehttp://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/12/15/tea-for-free/
http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/12/15/tea-for-free/#commentsSun, 15 Dec 2013 05:29:11 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5201Today was the last time Jenny & I set up our fair trade stall.

We ran it for a bit over 2 years and introduced many people to fair trade.

But it’s time to stop and do other things

To celebrate the end of our stall we are having a little competition.
All the tea in the photo below could be yours.

All you have to do is leave a comment below with a 25 word or less answer of why you should win the tea.

The answer with the most ‘t’s in it wins!

(it must be a proper answer, not just a jumble of words or tttttttttt)

Entries close 6:00pm Wednesday 18th December. (AEST)

For those of you who seem to have never used a computer before, click on the little speech bubble to the bottom right of this post.

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http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/07/21/security/#commentsSun, 21 Jul 2013 11:19:56 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5152We have lived in this house for 5 years and only tonight Jenny informs me there is a brazier under the house!

After we put the son to bed I headed off (in the cold and up the big hill….I’m amazing) in the direction of Westfield to get some heat beads.

Tonight was fire night!!!!!!

I walked my usual way to Westfield, went inside and down the escalator turning to walk towards the supermarket. Just after turning after getting off the escalator a security guard walked in front of me and said “Hey, what’s your problem” I was a bit confused and said ‘Huh”. “where are you going?” I said to the supermarket.

He then came much closer to me and as asked why I punched the door on my way in… I was super confused and said I didn’t punch anything, he said that I had been seen punching the door and asked again why I punched it. I told him how I walked in to the centre down the escalator and then met him.

He went on to tell me that not only did I punch the door but I also had an altercation with a female.

I denied.

He then picked up his radio and rattled off some ‘code numbers’. Which on reflection probably translate to “This security badge has inflated my ego beyond control”.

anyway literally 10 seconds later another security guard appeared and confirmed that it was me who punched the door and had the altercation.

What the hell????

I explained that I walked here alone, I walked in the door, no altercations, no punching and heading straight to woolies.

No response, they both looked at each other.

I don’t know why but I have never been a big fan of authority, or in this case perceived authority. I ended the awkward silence and stares by turning and walking off saying “I’m going to the supermarket”. After a few steps the security guy said ‘whatever, don’t worry about it”. That was it.

Bloody weird? Maybe I matched a description but the second security guard who apparently saw me committing the acts probably needs to visit one of the many optometrists in the centre.

The fire was awesome. Now I’m warmed up I’ll go back to Westfield and punch their door.

]]>http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/07/21/security/feed/0lapsedhttp://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/07/04/lapsed/
http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/07/04/lapsed/#commentsThu, 04 Jul 2013 05:47:58 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5144A lot of time has lapsed since I last blogged.

Here is a time lapse video I made from David’s balcony in Melbourne a few days ago.

I accidentally bumped the camera stand. (a pile of milk crates) hence the shot changing near the end.

]]>http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/07/04/lapsed/feed/0noodle kinghttp://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/06/12/noodle-king/
http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/06/12/noodle-king/#commentsWed, 12 Jun 2013 12:24:12 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5141Tonight I went up to our local noodle outlet to get some of their delights.

I ordered the BBQ box and a Vegie noodle soup.

The lady said it would be $18.

I flashed some plastic and headed towards the eftpos machine and stood their waiting for her to join me. (the eftpos machine is on a different part of the counter).

She eventually came over and inserted my card then walked off, never to return again.

After waiting a few minutes I decided to just do the transaction myself. I entered the amount, selected the account type, put in my pin.

It processed …..

Then asked if I wanted to print a merchant receipt, I said yes.

then a customer receipt, yes again. the 5 staff working the wok’s never looked over.

I saw they had a spike for merchant receipts so I stuck it on and waited for my food.

My food was ready, they called my number. I left.

Customer of the year.

]]>http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/06/12/noodle-king/feed/0Getting my fix…..ethicallyhttp://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/05/30/getting-my-fix-ethically/
http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/05/30/getting-my-fix-ethically/#commentsThu, 30 May 2013 10:51:59 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5137I’ve been banging on about fair trade for years. Luckily for the 3 remaining blog readers I have, it’s not often on here I talk about it.

I’ve been a fan of fair trade for a long time, for a few years it was even part of my job to talk to young people about the benefits of fair trade as we work out our role in global poverty.

If you wonder why I like fair trade, why I sell fair trade stuff and what gives me the loose and unformed stool about other ‘ethical’ models you can read my old post here.

This post is about my addiction to coke.

Whilst spending many hours of my life blabbing on about the poor and fair trade pretty much every day for the past decade I’ve also had a coke. I love it, an ice cold coke even on a cold day is a great tasting beverage. Sometime people would question my ethics of talking one thing then having a coke after. I’d try and justify it by giving examples of visiting poor communities and them giving me a coke too. Or say that Coke in Australia isn’t as bad as coke in other parts of the world. Whatever, I didn’t care. I like the drink, everyone has their guilty pleasures so I’m gonna drink it. As I get older I still like coke, there is still something really nice about a cold coke on hot day or the perfect companion to a dinner of spaghetti bologanise. But with age aslo comes wisdom, and for me the wisdom seems to be coming a bit later than a lot of people around me. I have to care about the ethics of what I consume. I can’t search out fair trade undies, and tea and chocolate and cotton but then crack open a coke and fell good about myself.

A few years ago there was a ethical cola released, I can’t remember it’s name but I can remember it tasted disgusting.

In the middle of last year I got wind of a Banana company in NZ that it imports fair trade bananas. Well they were gearing up to release a fair trade cola.

As you know I’m New Zealand’s biggest fan and would move there in a heart beat is there was opportunity. I love everything about the place. So not only was there a fair trade cola on the horizon it was also coming from NZ…..Wahooooooo.

I sent pestering emails to the company probably causing them to add me to a ‘friggen crazy guy again’ email filter. I wanted to try some, stuff NZ come and sell it to me in Sydney, let me sell it, let me be your Aussie CEO etc etc etc

This was before even tasting it but the NZ connection assured me it would be good because the only bad thing to come out of NZ is Russel Crowe.

It’s called Karma Cola and it began popping up in fancy cafes around NZ. Luckily some friends of mine were heading home from NZ to the UK via Sydney.

So i emailed them a list of all the cafes in the South island that sold Karma Cola and asked them to bring me some.

They arrived in Sydney and we arranged to have lunch together. THEY WAITED UNTIL AFTER LUNCH AND SOME PLAY TIME IN THE PARK FOR MY SON TO HAND OVER THE COLA!!!!!

I took it home, I chilled it, I drank a bottle.

The first few sips I didn’t like at all. ‘This doesn’t taste like coke’.

I had to get my brain to work pretty hard to tell myself ‘This is a totally different drink’.

Being the selfless person that I am, I gave the second bottle to my brother in law.

Then months and months of nothing.

I hit the social media, knowing that the email filter would be in place and got in on banter and commenting on posts etc.

Then they starting posting about Karma Cola being available in a few cafes in Melbourne… Melbourne WTF??????

more months and more tweets.

Then the day came, facebook posts about Sydney cafes stocking Karma Cola.

Blow the cafes, I don’t want to go all the way to Surry Hills to get one bottle.

So I sent a message asking if ti was possible to buy a case or two. (by this stage that had also release a fair trade ginger beer called Gingerella)

they kindly gave me a contact and within 24hrs there was a friendly delivery man at my door with 2 cases of the Cola and 1 of the Gingerella.

I loaded up the fridge and waited for them to chill.

Eventually they were ready!

Karma Cola is amazing, every bottle I drink the better it tastes. the Gingerella is amazing too a nice smooth ginger beer.

I’m hooked and not just because of the flavour, It’s a drink that embraces my belief in fairness.

Do I still like Coke, yeah I still like a coke and I’m sure from time to time I’ll drink it. But this stuff is amazing and unique and who cares if it tastes different when it’s helping the poor and marginalised. Now I can drink it in total appreciation of it’s own flavour not comparing it to coke too.

The real thing…

Now how about that Aussie CEO position?

]]>http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/05/30/getting-my-fix-ethically/feed/0dodgy dodgyhttp://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/05/16/dodgy-dodgy/
http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/05/16/dodgy-dodgy/#commentsThu, 16 May 2013 04:34:51 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5131All right kiddies, time to get out a permanent marker and start drawing on a new ‘border’ for Australia. The shape of our nation just changed. It seems the new shape of our land resembles a giant hand flipping the bird at the UN along with the poor and needy looking for refuge here.
It could also be drawn as giant bollocks.

1 adult and 1 4yr old does not equal 2 adults in fact in terms of productivity it equals negative 5 adults.

It was a long process, not only did I have to answer a billion questions about every little thing i did, the amount of little things i had to do increased 65 fold due to little hands moving pegs, poles etc to different parts of the front yard because he was being ‘helpful’.

Thankfully 3/4 of the way through putting it up he got bored and went inside to begin sourcing items to put inside the tent. You know essential camping items like soft toy dolphins, dinosaurs, books, cars and a microphone.

Oscar brought these items out one by one whilst I fiddled with ropes and zippers.

Oscar was inside the tent when I placed the last peg in place holding the fly down.

As I took the last bang of the hammer on the peg it began to rain.

I dashed to the verandah, Oscar was inside the tent.

The rain got heavier and heavier and then it began to hail.

Like hell I was going back to the tent.

In between the loud dents of hail I could hear Oscar singing into his microphone and complaining about how loud he had to be because the rain was too loud.

He stayed in there an hour.

We went off to dinner at the inlaws and came back ready to sleep in the tent.

I think Oscar is the only person in the world so far to work out how to frustrate me to a point of no return. Now it should be noted that my version of frustrated is a lot different to other peoples. The frustration / anger part of me is pretty small and weak.

My version of extreme frustration is normally executed through things like a non specific ‘grrrrr’ tweet or some muttering followed by me withdrawing from whatever it is.

But sometimes Oscar gets me to a point where I want to angry tweet, mutter LOUDLY and even shout out “OSCAR WHY DID YOU DO THAT, I’M VERY CROSS”

Today I tweeted

I said things like ‘grrrrrrrrrr’ and ‘what the hell”

and I shouted at Oscar.

Then I left the room to calm down.

I called Jenny, I calmed down while the phone was still ringing, we worked out some consequences of Oscar’s actions and I went back in and Oscar and I spent a long time cleaning.

Every day that we are home Oscar has a ‘rest time’.

Time in his room where he can play quietly or look at books and if hell freezes over maybe even nap.

Rest time ended today and I went in to his room to say Hi and help him tidy thing away so we could get on with the day.

First thing I notice was all his drawers open, then I pan the room to discover his window looks all blurry, a bit like frosted glass. I’m pretty sure he had normal windows an hour ago.

It is then I discover a tub of his eczema cream on the floor.

I asked Oscar what happened to his window.

“Well an ant came in my window and picked up the cream and walked all over my windows”

What really happened Oscar?

“well it really was the ant”

the frustration is probably up to me knees at this point.

I asked Oscar not to lie and tell me the truth, he said he didn’t know what happened.

This went on for a while, at the same time I noticed more and more things in his room covered in cream, I also notice more tubs and tubes of eczema creams placed around his room.

Eventually he owned up to doing it, I guess the Ant knew Oscar’s weakness and figured he would own up sometime, bloody Ant!!!!!

We spent a lot of time cleaning things and discovering more things covered.

He used the following creams in case you are wondering

I took all his toy cars out of his room and also told him no tv, videos etc for a few days.

Normally when we take things away he explodes and the whole world falls apart. Which I guess in a way is what we want as it’s a result of him doing something wring there is consequences that affect him.

not today damn it.

His response was

“that’s fine daddy, I don’t need toys and videos. Now I won’t get distracted in rest time”

GGGGGRRRRRRRRAAAAARRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!

PS. If you know someone with sensitive skin I’m charging by the hour to come and roll around in Oscar’s room. No socks though, the floor is way too slippery.

]]>http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/04/16/cream-of-the-crop/feed/1transport nerdhttp://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/04/16/transport-nerd/
http://www.thehowie.net/blog/2013/04/16/transport-nerd/#commentsTue, 16 Apr 2013 00:05:23 +0000http://www.thehowie.net/blog/?p=5106Many years ago I organised a fun evening of transport fun. It was when Cityrail decided that their service was soo bad they had fair free day.

So some friends and I split in to two teams and tried to complete a bunch of silly challenges and tasks. I don’t remember heaps about the night, and talking to Tom he doesn’t remember much either. But we are sure it was fun. If no memorable.

Then in my time at a previous employer I organised 2 or 3 full day transport challenges. These days where for youth coming from different parts of Sydney. I never got to be a participant but I loved running them and setting the challenges etc. The youth and their leaders siad they where some of the best youth days the organisation had put on. I was pretty chuffed.

So many many years later and being inspired by the last few days of the March Photo Scav Hunt I decided it was time to run one again.